


Please Don't Live in Fear

by lookingforthestars



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Molly being everyone's little sister and a smartass, Moving On, Nightmares, Post series finale, a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforthestars/pseuds/lookingforthestars
Summary: The trauma is over. The hard part is healing.
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes, Molly Hayes | Molly Hernandez & Chase Stein, Molly Hayes | Molly Hernandez & Gertrude Yorkes
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Please Don't Live in Fear

She still wakes up scared.

Sometimes it’s those damned nightmares, sometimes it’s just this creeping feeling that winds up her neck until she can’t breathe. Gert wakes up startled, and one of two things happens: she sees Chase peacefully, blissfully conked out next to her and relaxes fairly quickly. Or, since he’s an irritatingly chipper morning person and usually wakes up before her to go running, Gert silently panics until she sees some evidence that Chase has been there – his phone on the nightstand, his shirt tossed aside carelessly on the floor, one of those dumb cutesy notes he leaves on the pillow because Chase is a romantic, and Gert hates how much she likes it.

This morning, there’s nothing. Gert knows, logically, that he’s okay – but that doesn’t stop the _what if_ chorus from striking up in her head. What if he left again, what if he’s in danger, what if Old Lace went feral and ate him, _what if, what if, what if, what if_.

“Hey, you’re up.” His easy voice drifts through the doorway, blindingly bright smile dropping when he sees the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

Gert squeezes her eyes shut, pushing the hair away from her face with one unsteady hand. “Nothing. I just woke up and you…” She blows out a slow breath to calm her racing heart. “You weren’t here, so my brain went a little crazy.”

“Sorry.” Chase is quick to her side, rubbing her back as he sits next to her on the bed. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I should have let you know-.”

“No, seriously, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me where you are every second.” Not that Chase wouldn’t, if she asked – Gert’s pretty sure he would. But she already checks off so many boxes on the _overbearing girlfriend_ bingo card, and she’s not looking to add obsessive monitoring to the list. This is her issue to figure out, not his. “It’ll get better, I think. It’s just still kind of fresh.”

He nods. He knows. Even though there had been a laundry list of odd things she couldn’t explain, Gert fully believed that the Chase dying in her arms was the man she knew and loved. It wasn’t, and she’s lucky – they’re lucky – but it’s hard to shake that feeling.

There’s so much they pushed aside, buried deep because there wasn’t any time to process it before the next crisis hit. Now they’re fresh out of crises, and the trauma is a force to be reckoned with. It feels like fighting for survival all over again. Maybe she has something akin to PTSD – maybe they all do.

“Is there…” Chase wets his tongue with his lips, choosing his words carefully. “Is there anything I can do? To make it easier?”

It’s hard for him, she can tell – balancing his naturally protective nature with her fierce independence. Making her feel taken care of without making her feel like she _needs_ to be taken care of. Even if maybe, sometimes, she really does. “We should have some kind of signal.”

“A signal?”

“Yeah. Like…” Gert rummages through the drawer in her bedside table and hands him a red rubber band. “Leave this on your pillow if you’ll be gone before I wake up. I’ll see it and know you’re okay.”

It’s dumb, and it’s only a partial solution to the bigger problem, but it’s better than asking Chase to stay glued to the bed for an extra hour every day just so she doesn’t wake up alone. He smiles yieldingly, putting it on his table next to a half-empty glass of water. “Deal.”

He leans in, pecking her softly, but it’s not enough. Gert needs it to be something more. She cups his face, deepening the kiss, a surprised noise escaping his throat when she slips her tongue in his mouth.

He’s warm, and solid, and beautiful, and _alive_. Chase is the most alive person she knows; he doesn’t hold back, commits himself to everything intensely and wears his heart on his sleeve. Sometimes it’s scary, the way she can feel him in her skin and bones and soul. But right now, that’s exactly what she wants.

“I’m, uh,” he pants as Gert tugs at the hem of his ratty muscle shirt, dragging her fingers feather light over his skin. “I’m kind of sweaty.”

She presses a kiss to his jaw. “If we do this right, we’ll both be sweaty.”

* * *

“Someone had a good morning.”

Chase goes bright red, just barely saving the coffee pot from slipping out of his hand. A few steaming drops slosh over the edge and land on his thumb, making him grit his teeth. “Morning, Molly.”

She leans against the counter, watching him with one eyebrow raised. “You okay there?”

“Yep. Totally fine,” Chase says, his voice noticeably strained. There’s something in Molly’s tone that strongly hints _I know what you were up to this morning_ and he would much, much rather Gert tackle these kinds of conversations.

“You’re so whipped,” she chuckles, and Chase realizes that he’s smiling again at the mere thought of Gert. Yeah, he’s whipped – it’s fine, he stopped fighting it a while ago. He’s probably going to be grinning all day. It was a pretty good morning. “I’m glad you and Gert are back together.”

“You are?” He pulls out Molly’s favorite mug, the one Nico bought her that says _Come at Me, Bro_ , and fills it with the rest of the coffee from the pot.

“Yeah,” Molly says, making grabby hands at the cup and taking a long sip. Apparently, her super strength extends to a tolerance for hot liquids. “You guys are, like, soulmates or whatever. The Hostel is full of true love,” she says with a dreamy sigh.

Chase smiles. Her unstoppable enthusiasm is infectious, and he’s happy to have her in his corner. He’s always thought of her as a little sister, and Gert is the most important person in the world to her too, so her opinion carries a lot of weight. “Thanks, Molls.”

“No problem,” she shrugs. “Chase?”

He stops, balancing the handles of his mug and Gert’s in one hand. “Yeah?”

“If you hurt her again, I’ll throw you into the Pacific Ocean.”

“Noted.”

* * *

If there’s one thing Gert misses about being on the run, it’s the lack of competition.

She knows it’s a little screwed up to think of other girls as the enemy – women supporting women, and all that – but her idealism take a backseat to the seemingly neverending parade of teenagers in crop tops and designer bags checking out her boyfriend.

One girl is full on staring at his ass, and while Gert understands the impulse, it kind of makes her want to scream.

Why did she have to fall for someone so objectively attractive? She’s never been the paragon of self-confidence, but the way people fawn all over Chase makes her feel invisible. It was something she’d kind of forgotten about at the Hostel, once they left Eiffel in the dust and realized Karolina only had eyes for Nico, but she’s vividly reminded now, every time they leave their odd little bubble.

“What?” Chase follows her gaze to a group of girls sipping smoothies and wearing virtually identical outfits. He barely seems to register them before he turns his attention back to her, but of course he doesn’t – being ogled is a daily occurrence for hot people. “Gert, what’s that face for?”

Gert shoots them her best _move along_ glare, and they all turn around. “Nothing.”

“Mm, not nothing. Did those girls do something?”

“Nothing I shouldn’t already be used to by now,” she sighs, tucking her hair behind her ear. There’s concern etched all over Chase’s face, and it bugs her that he’s so worried when she’s just being petty and jealous and dumb.

What he did for her – he’s done so much for her. Nothing else should matter. She tells herself it doesn’t. But maybe one grand, life-changing gesture isn’t enough to turn off the voice in her head that says she’ll never be enough, for him, for anyone, for anything she wants.

“It’s just…” They’re in a real relationship now, which requires honesty – even if it makes her look and/or feel like an idiot. Gert knows how hurt Chase gets when she keeps things from him; they’ve been down this road before. “I don’t like the way people look at us when we’re together. Wondering what the hot guy is doing here with the weird chick.”

She flicks through the clothes on the rack, even though they’re in the men’s section and it’s essentially the same three shirts in different colors and garish patterns. It just gives her something to do with her hands while she waits for Chase to process what she said, because he’s not responding, and he’s probably gearing up for a rant about how annoying her insecurities are and how they should really be past this already.

“Gert,” he says instead, quietly so the bros shopping two racks over can’t hear. “You have no idea what people are thinking.”

“Well, I can guess.”

“You want to know what I think?” Gert raises her eyebrow, but Chase simply steps behind her and wraps his arms around her stomach, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “I think they’re staring at the hot girl with badass purple hair and feeling jealous over how happy and in love we _clearly_ are.”

All at once, Gert feels the tension bleed out of her, and she can’t help but huff out a laugh and turn her head to kiss him. Everyone else can come for them. She’ll fight for Chase Stein with everything she’s got.

* * *

Her coffee is cold, but Gert can’t be bothered to get up. She’s practically melded to the couch and her eyes are glazed over after nine hours of lectures. Smith put her on the waiting list but promised to revisit her application if she could get her diploma within three months. That means a lot of cramming and careful scheduling, but it’s doable, especially since they’re all taking virtual classes and don’t have to waste time on the bullshit high school politics of Atlas Academy.

“Gerrrrrt,” Molly whines from the chair, dramatically throwing her head back. “Can you tell my teacher that I don’t need to learn geometry to be a backup dancer for Beyoncé?”

“Even Beyoncé had to do homework, Molls.” Gert stretches, groaning at the tightness in her muscles. “Besides, you only have to catch up on what you missed, and you can start your sophomore year like normal. And unlike me, you will have an amazing time in high school.”

“It would be better without math,” she pouts. Gert meets her eyes, and they both collapse into giggles. “It’s gonna be so weird going back to Atlas without you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Gert bites her lip. “But we were going to graduate eventually, right?”

There are nights Gert wonders if they can just stay in the Hostel forever, tucked away from the world, together. It seems strange that moving forward with their lives could be scarier than their parents being murderers or possessed by aliens or under the control of an evil witch. And yet.

She’s lucky that she won’t be alone – she’ll be with her best friend, her support system. Moving to Massachusetts hadn’t ever really been in his plans, so he decided to work and save up money for a while until he found the right school. Sometimes she feels guilty, asking him to pack up his life and move across the country, but he assured her that he wasn’t leaving much behind.

Even so, it’s hard to know that getting something she wants means giving up something she loves. Someone. Two someones, actually.

“I’m gonna be fine, Gert. You know that, right?” Molly has her pegged, as usual. Sometimes Gert wonders if her emotions are stamped on her forehead, with how easily everyone seems to read her. “Seriously, Old Lace and I will be okay. We’ll miss you, but we’re tough.”

Gert snickers internally about the idea of Molly being as tough as an actual dinosaur, but it’s hard to argue. Molly is the strongest person she knows. Knocked down over and over and over again, and she gets back up every time. “I know. I just hate that I won’t be here to look after you. Especially since-.”

“I’m going to keep using my powers?” Molly finishes. Gert gave up on talking Molly out of her superhero dreams; it didn’t stop her from sneaking out at night to beat up pimps, and it wasn’t going to stop her now. At least Nico and Karolina had agreed to train her and provide backup as needed. Not to mention giving Molly a place to live whenever they moved out of the Hostel. Gert was _not_ letting her sister stay in that decrepit mansion alone. “Look, Lace and I will FaceTime you every day. And you’ll be able to see that we’re fine. I’ll be living out my dreams and you’ll be living out yours and everything will be _awesome_.”

Gert smiles softly. “I really, truly don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

“I know,” Molly says casually. “I’m pretty irreplaceable.”

* * *

 _Things will be different, son. I promise._ Nope, never heard that one before.

It’s not like it matters, anyway – he’ll be moving to Massachusetts with Gert in a few months, if all goes well. And he’s excited for it, a fresh start, a chance to strike out on his own without Victor Stein’s shadow looming over him.

But the question weighs heavy on him, even though he has no intention of spending another minute in his dad’s house. Especially without his mother there – even if she is, technically, there. She’s in the cloud now, or something like that, so he can see her wherever he is.

Things might really be different this time, but he doesn’t know if he’s willing to risk it. Chase doesn’t think he can handle the disappointment of being tricked by his father _again_. Ever since he was six, the first time Victor laid a hand on him, Chase has dreamed about becoming a legal adult and getting the hell out of Brentwood. He’s so close to achieving that, and he’s terrified of being sucked back in, like he has so many times before.

“Are you thinking about your dad?” Gert asks, folding the jacket cover to save her place and setting her book aside. This is their routine a lot of nights, her reading, him sketching out new ideas on his tablet. It’s normal and quiet and nice. It’s peaceful in a way he’s not used to.

He frowns. “That obvious?”

“It’s the only thing you really get serious about.” She moves onto her side, propping her elbow on the pillows and her head against her palm. “You’re not considering it, are you?”

It’s faint, but it’s there – the fear in her voice. He already left her once in favor of his father, with no warning and not nearly enough explanation, and even before he knew that Victor was secretly Jonah, he knew he made a mistake. “No. He’s had enough chances and I’m tired of jumping when he says jump. Whatever relationship we have is going to be on my terms, and my terms are that I’m staying here with you.”

Gert relaxes a little. He wishes she didn’t have so many valid reasons to doubt him. “Okay. I believe you.”

“Good.” He shifts, kissing her forehead. Chase knows there’s nothing he can say to convince her, just like there’s nothing his father can say to convince Chase that he’s changed. It can only be proved with actions. With time. “Does it ever make you nervous?” he asks tentatively, picking idly at the sheets between them. “That I come from this line of terrible people? That I could be like them?”

Chase isn’t sure he wants the answer, but he can’t stop himself from asking. He’s wondered all his life if he’s destined to repeat Victor’s mistakes, and thanks to his journey into the Dark Dimension, he can safely say that his grandfather was somehow even worse. What that means for him, he still doesn’t know.

He’s only eighteen, after all. Chase can’t definitively say that Victor was always a monster, or if something snapped once he had a family. And that freaks him out.

“Chase, we’re all products of terrible people,” Gert says with conviction, that certainty he’s always kind of envied about her. “Our parents are murderers, remember? If you think you’re capable of bad things because of what your dad did, then what makes me any different?”

“Okay, but that’s not…it’s not the same thing. You remember what an asshole I was before all this, right?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, and you didn’t want to be that person, so you changed. Your dad never changed because he didn’t want to. If you’re asking if I’m _scared_ of you, then no. I’m not. You’ve never given me any reason to be.”

Part of him knows it’s the truth, and if he genuinely believed he was a threat to Gert, he would stay far away from her. But, still, hearing it out loud helps.

He exhales, shaking his head. “Just promise you won’t be like my mom. Making excuses and pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. That’s the last thing I want for you.”

“I think our goal should be to not end up like any of our parents.”

“I’m _serious_ ,” Chase says sternly, met with Gert’s mock-solemn expression. “I’ve made so many excuses for my parents. Everything they did, to those kids, to me. I want that cycle to end with me.”

Her features soften, and she reaches out, wrapping her small, strong hand around his. “Babe, you have to stop torturing yourself. Look, I know I gave you a lot of crap when you left, and I was wrong. Abusers get into your head, make you think you need them. And he’s your dad. I don’t know what that’s like, and I shouldn’t have acted like I did. Going back wasn’t smart, but it wasn’t all your fault, either.”

Chase rolls onto his back, keeping their hands entangled, and stares up at the ceiling as he tries to arrange the words he wants to say in his head. It’s a mess up there. “I didn’t want any of our parents to be evil. As soon as I thought they were on our side, I just latched onto it hard.” It’s all so obvious in hindsight, that it was a trick and Jonah targeted him because he was the weakest link. But it hadn’t felt like a trick at the time – it felt like a chance to get everything he ever wanted. “I was just so overwhelmed. We all were, but I felt like everyone was handling it better than I was. And I figured they’re our parents, right? Adults? They should have known what to do and been able to protect us. But they’re just as clueless as we are. And that’s terrifying, Gert. No one has it figured it out. I don’t want to feel like that my whole life, like I’m drowning.”

“I think if we avoid entering into blood pacts with any homicidal aliens, we’ll be okay.” She curls into his side, resting her head on his shoulder, and Chase wraps his arm around her, rubbing her hip with his thumb. “And, you know, maybe don’t try to shoot me with the Fistigons again.”

“Again?”

“Oh, right, you probably don’t remember that.” Gert stifles a yawn against her hand. “You were under the influence of Satan’s cell phone. That was pretty dicey.”

Chase looks down at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Holy shit, Gert. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was a lot of other stuff going on?” she says, blinking innocently and shrugging. “Don’t worry about it. Molly tackled you to the floor and I stabbed you with a needle.”

“Is that where those bruises came from?”

* * *

_The worst part isn’t watching Chase gasp for breath through strained lungs. The worst part isn’t his blood seeping into her clothes, warm and sticky and vividly colored against his increasingly pale skin. The worst part isn’t watching everything that defines him fade from his eyes until it’s all gone._

_The worst part is that he’s at peace. The worst part is that he’s looking up at her like this is all okay, like he’s willing to sacrifice himself for her, like this won’t tear her apart from the inside every second of every day. Like she won’t be stuck picking up the pieces, for the rest of her life._

Gert wakes up shaking and nauseated. The cheap battery-powered alarm clock next to her bed says it’s just after five a.m. and she inhales deeply, trying to decide if she’s really going to throw up or if the sensation will pass. The nightmares are always ugly and difficult and unpleasant, but they’re not always this intense. Gert wants to scrub her brain with bleach until all the blood is gone.

Chase never sleeps through her audible breathing and the rustling of the comforter, and this time is no exception. He rubs a hand over his face and sits up, features already etched with the concern that she either loves or hates, depending on how embarrassed she is by whatever she’s upset about. “Bad dream?”

She doesn’t know if it qualifies as a bad dream when it’s actually a memory of the worst moment of her life. However she classifies it, she can still feel Chase slipping away under her fingers and it makes her flinch and pull away when the real Chase reaches out to rub her arm.

Gert’s out of the bed before she can think straight, running her hands through her hair. It’s too much. She recalls what Chase said a few days ago about drowning, and it fits. She hates feeling like this as much as she hates the thought of him feeling like this.

He says her name gently, sliding off the mattress and giving her plenty of distance. “Hey, it’s okay. Breathe. Everyone’s safe, I promise.”

Her hands are still trembling as she wraps her arms around herself. The temperature in the Hostel is way too low for the pajamas she’s wearing, but Chase is basically a human furnace, so she always has to dress down for bed. She complains, but she secretly missed it when he was gone. She missed it when he was turning cold to her touch.

Fuck, she actually might throw up.

“Gert, it was just a dream.”

“No, Chase, it fucking _wasn’t_ ,” she snaps, and it’s too loud but she’s too worked up to worry about potentially waking up the rest of the house. “It’s not a goddamn dream, it happened. And you weren’t there, you didn’t see it, okay? You didn’t see his face. I got to live, and he died. _You_ died. How am I ever supposed to forget that?”

He must know she’ll punch him if he says _it wasn’t me_ , like he always does, because he doesn’t say it this time. Chase opens his mouth and shuts it a few times before he finally settles on a response. “I don’t know, Gert. But it’s better than the alternative.”

The alternative. Her life, gone, erased instead of his. Gert’s well aware there’s another timeline where she died, maybe in Chase’s arms, but he doesn’t have to remember. He doesn’t have to relive it.

“Not for me,” she says weakly, her eyes slipping shut. Her head is pounding. “I don’t know that I’m ever going to be okay with the fact that you traded your life for mine. Any version of you. I’m never going to understand that.”

There’s a change in his expression – everything seems to tighten, from his forehead to his shoulders. “What is there to understand? I love you. I would probably risk it for any of our friends, but you…I would risk my life for you every time. Without even thinking about it.”

She exhales shakily. “I know, Chase. That’s the part I don’t understand.”

He seems to read the subtext in her words, because he circles around the bed, pulling her into his arms. She buries her face in his chest and tries to breathe as he props his chin on top of her head. “Being with you was the only time in my entire life that I didn’t feel alone,” he murmurs, cupping the back of her neck with his palm. “I can’t explain it, and I don’t need to. I’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto that.”

* * *

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

Chase grins, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. Gert tries not to let on how much she’s appreciating the view. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

It brings back memories, alright, although she’s not sure how much she wants to dredge them up. “Can you imagine if we hadn’t found the Hostel? We would have been in those camps for months.”

“I don’t know. I kind of liked it,” Chase says with an impish smile. He strikes up a match against its box and throws it onto the pile of firewood while Gert digs through their cooler for s’mores ingredients. “Being forced to share a sleeping bag. I got to be close to you while still having – what’s it called? Plausible deniability?”

Gert chuckles softly, tearing open the bag of marshmallows and handing him a couple to roast. “And now we’re still forced to share a sleeping bag.”

“Well, I figured, why bring extra baggage when you’re just going to snuggle up with me for warmth and protection against coyotes…”

“Shit, are there coyotes here?” She looks around, like there will be one in her immediate eyeline, but it’s all clear…for now. Chase got them a good campsite – it’s only a short hike to the water, and the surrounding lots are empty through the weekend.

She’s still a little fidgety about people stealing their belongings – blame it on previous encounters with sleeping outdoors – so she’d insisted on not bringing anything valuable except the Rolls, because they needed a car that could haul all this junk. For such a “natural” activity, camping is pretty high maintenance. Or maybe it’s just Chase that’s high maintenance; he never does anything halfway.

“If we don’t disturb the coyotes, I’m pretty sure they won’t disturb us,” Chase shrugs. _Pretty sure_ doesn’t exactly fill her with confidence, but they’ve also faced off against much scarier predators than coyotes, so it’s probably fine. “Marshmallows are ready.”

Gert assembles a graham cracker and chocolate tower and holds it open for Chase. He lets her have the first s’more, because of course he does.

Chase eats the second, which means he tastes like marshmallow when he leans in and kisses her unexpectedly. She smiles like a dope. “What’s that for?”

“Nothing. I’m just happy to be out here with you.”

She melts harder than a cheap chocolate bar, even though if anyone asks, she’ll blame the flush in her cheeks on the fire until she dies. “Me too.” Gert tilts her head against his shoulder, watching the first stars scatter across the night sky. There are already a lot of them – it’s going to be a gorgeous night. “God, if someone told me a year ago that you and I would be here…I never would have believed it.”

“Really?”

Gert frowns a little. “Yeah. You’re not surprised by this?”

“I don’t know. I guess not,” he says pensively. “I always felt kind of connected to you, you know. I was just too screwed up to understand it or do anything about it. I didn’t really have anything to compare it to. Maybe I’m surprised by how everything happened, but I’m not surprised that we happened.”

It does feel inevitable, sometimes, being with Chase. Gert never considered herself a star-crossed lover or anything, but there’s a big universe out there – they should know – and she can’t dismiss the possibility that she and Chase are meant to be.

Or maybe there’s no such thing, and they’re just two childhood friends who fell in love. She can’t explain it. She doesn’t need to.


End file.
